Sakumo and his teammates finally caught up with them.
"Bingo, thanks for getting us here."
He nodded.
"One more thing, Be careful here, the ninjas I tracked have a powerful scent on them and they're many, I can sense danger here, don't be reckless, I know it's an important mission but be careful, Konoha will suffer a bigger loss if you die than if you fail, so don't be an idiot."
Sakumo nodded, Bingo and his pack disappeared.
Bingo had never shown such concern with Sakumo's safety like that, it bothered him for a bit, then he calmed down a bit.
"Sakumo-sama, Kumo has planned an ambush, it seems they know they're being followed, I can sense multiple traps, they think there is only one way to get to them because we can't see them, I suspect they don't know I'm a sensory type.
The other way will take longer, but not if we hurry, we can cut them off."
Sakumo nodded, they took the longer route and went to cut their path off, they reached the other side before them.
"Earth-style multiple mud wall!"
Akio trapped them, the walls covered all of them but it would not hold for long.
"Fire style: Fireball jutsu!"
Akira shot out a massive fireball.
The Fireball hit the rock wall; it collided and made the whole place dusty.
"Earth-style hiding mole Jutsu!" Sakumo came from underground and stole back the documents from them.
"Not so fast!"
While Sakumo was about to escape, Akio and Akira got captured.
"Give us the documents or your teammates die right here."
Meanwhile, Ryuu followed the Jinchuriki, and he stopped again…
"At this point ill never know who it is, I have to speed things up!" He said to himself.
Ryuu started moving closer to see.
Ryuu's eyes widened, just by seeing his headgear, Ryuu knew exactly who it was.
He teleported back to Minato and Jiraiya to give them a report.
"Ryuu, did you find something that could help us take him down?" Ryuu nodded.
"The Jinchurikis name is Roshi, he's from Iwagakure and has mastered the Kekkei Genkai called lava release, the mixture between rock and fire,
it's efficient in long-range combat but don't let that fool you.
Roshi can cover himself with a coat of lava, making him untouchable and increasing the impact for his taijutsu."
Jiraiya and Minato's faces were concerned.
"Oh, and I was wrong, he isn't a perfect Jinchuriki, but he and the 4 tails have a complicated relationship because of Roshi's stubborn personality, that's why I thought he was a perfect Jinchuriki."
Jiraiya was shocked.
"You got all of this by simply following him?"
Ryuu shook his head.
"I just know a couple of things."
He said with a smile.
"Well, that doesn't matter now though, we just need to finish this mission and push them back to iwa."
They nodded.
They formed a plan to take him down.
Back in the land of rice paddies, things weren't looking good for Sakumo and his team, he was struggling to decide whether to save his teammates and fail the mission or let them be killed and stop the enemy from getting valuable information on Konoha.
"So what will it be, White fang? Will you let the village down or will you let your friends down?"
One of them asked.
"Just run! Forget about us and complete the mission!" Akira said.
"Shut up!" He got punched.
Suddenly, the ground started rumbling.
"Behind us!" He shouted.
One of them shouted, they all jumped out of the way, leaving Sakumo's teammates as a wave of soil was coming to hit them.
Sakumo jumped in to save them, he grabbed both of them and threw them away from harm.
"We got him!" A shinobi shouted as he went to steal the Document.
Sakumo reacted right on time.
"White light chakra sabre!" All everyone saw was a white after image cut through him.
They were scared of seeing their teammate get killed with such ease.
"Are you two alright?" He asked.
They didn't even look at him.
"You should've just run back to Konoha, we had the scroll, and the mission was complete, why didn't you just leave us to die? We would've died for our village, isn't that what we've always been prepared to do?"
Sakumo remained silent.
"It's one thing to sacrifice yourself, it's another thing to let your comrades die!"
They fell silent.
Sakumo frowned.
"We still have the documents and we can still make it back, on our way back if you all get captured by the enemies and I have an option to save you all, don't think for a second that I won't, whether or not you like it."
Akira and Akio folded their fist.
Multiple Jonin commanders surrounded them and, for the first time, Iwagakure and Kumogakure weren't fighting against each other, but they were uniting to kill Sakumo and his friends.
"Both of you listen to me now, I will draw the attention to myself as you two escape. I can't hold them back for long, so hurry."
Sakumo said he knew the chances of getting out of here were small.
"Are you kidding me?! The enemies will get the documents, we won't abandon the mis…" Sakumo punched him.
"Shut up and listen! This is no longer a request, it's an order from your captain and leader, go now!"
Akira frowned and looked down.
"Water style: water dragon jutsu!"
Multiple shinobis shot out dragons made of water.
"Summoning jutsu!"
A giant black wolf appeared, blocking all the Incoming water dragons.
Sakumo fought off everyone by himself and the wolf, none of them could believe it, not even his teammates, even though they were far from him they could still hear the yelling and screaming.
"He shouldn't have done this, I was ready and willing to die," Akira said.
"No, he was right to do this, none of us were going to make it out alive, the village is stronger and I get to see my family again because of him, I just hope he makes it out alive," Akio said.
After a long fight, Sakumo was running out of chakra, he had killed many shinobis. "Call reinforcements!" One of them said.
"At this point…" Sakumo Started thinking of Kakashi and Ryuu.
"No, I can't leave those two behind, that will be my real failure, I have one more move to make."
Sakumo gripped his sword tightly.
The enemies were too scared to even look at him.
"White light: chakra sabre dash."
He killed 10 of them in one swift move, all they saw was a bolt of lightning but more people were coming.
Sakumo was bleeding from his leg, where he kept the documents. "I've lost it!"
He said he figured he must have dropped during the fight.
"Reverse summoning Jutsu!" He got pulled in and away from the fight, he was close to the village and not that far from his teammates.
He started limping back to Konoha.
Meanwhile, his teammates Akio and Akira had reached, they went to the Hokage's office to give a debrief, Hiruzen was inside Danzo and the other elders.
"Hokage-sama, I'm sorry but we failed the mission," Akira said, Danzo had a smug look on him.
"What happened?" He asked.
"It was all Sakumo's doing."
Hiruzen frowned, he didn't expect to hear that.
"Explain." Akira nodded.
"We had the clear, we could've completed the mission but Akio and I got captured, we told Sakumo-sama to leave us behind but he didn't listen, instead he froze up, then we got ambushed by Iwagakure, that's when things got worse.
Sakumo-sama said he'll hold them all back by himself using the documents like bait, he's probably dead by now and we've failed the village."
Everyone in the room fell silent, losing the White fang of the leaf was a tremendous loss and worse is the way he died, scum in the eyes of many.
The only one who wasn't surprised was Danzo.
"What will you do Hiruzen? Surely we must punish him for breaking one of the shinobi rules, that's assuming he makes it back."
Danzo said Hiruzen was facing more problems.
"He saved the lives of two shinobi we shouldn't punish him badly, don't forget that he's one of us and an important man in Konoha."
"Tch!"
Danzo clicked.
"Even after doing all this you still want to forgive him? You're too soft, villages from other lands will see us as weak for this, they will look at us as a joke, we must punish him."
The other elders said nothing yet.
"Sadly, Sakumo broke the law and now he has to be punished for his crimes to be Hokage means you'll have no space for a soft heart, Hiruzen."
Koharu said, and Homura nodded.
He grabbed his pipe and dismissed them, the meeting was called off as Hiruzen thought of a punishment for him.
Meanwhile, Danzo had gone back to the root hideout…
"Now all you have to do is spread the news of the failures of the White Fang of the leaf Akira, and take this with you, keep it by your side and keep it safe as your life depends on it."
He took some documents and left.
He went to the most popular tavern in Konoha and spread rumors of how Sakumo failed to protect his village in a secret mission that could cost them the war; he told them how he Broke the rules of a shinobi as well.
After spending an hour their people started being angry at Sakumo. Some even hated him for what he did, the news spread soon all Konoha knew.